Multi-Antenna Station with Distributed Antennas

1. A multi-antenna station comprising: a plurality of antennas coupled to the multi-antenna station comprising at least one remote antenna that is located away from the multi-antenna station, the plurality of antennas are coupled to the multi-antenna station based at least in part on the type of each antenna and an intended coverage area of each antenna, the antennas are configured for data transmission to terminals; a controller that selects a set of antennas from the plurality of antennas for a particular terminal based at least in part on a power gap that exceeds a predetermined power gap threshold, wherein the power gap is a computed difference in power measurements associated with the particular terminal for individual antennas comprising the plurality of antennas; and at least one transmitter that broadcasts data to the particular terminal via the set of antennas.

2. The multi-antenna station of claim 1 , wherein the controller further obtains one or more signal-to-noise ratio, received signal strength, or correlation measurements for the antennas and selects the set of antennas based at least in part on the measurements.

3. The multi-antenna station of claim 1 , further comprising at least one power detector that measures received power of the plurality of antennas and provides one or more power measurements for each of the plurality of antennas.

4. The multi-antenna station of claim 3 , wherein the controller orders antennas according to highest power measurements among the plurality of antennas, computes the power gap between power measurements of adjacent ordered antennas, compares the power gap computed between the adjacent ordered antennas to the predetermined power gap threshold, and selects the adjacent ordered antennas that have a power gap exceeding the threshold.

5. The multi-antenna station of claim 3 , wherein the controller selects the antennas with power measurements above a predetermined power threshold.

6. The multi-antenna station of claim 1 , wherein the controller selects a set of one or more remote antennas nearest to the antenna in use.

7. The multi-antenna station of claim 1 , wherein the controller further selects a set of antennas based on location information associated with the set of antennas in use with the particular terminal.

8. The multi-antenna station of claim 1 , wherein the controller selects a transmission mode from a plurality of supported transmission modes based at least in part on a number of antennas in the set, the selected transmission mode is used for communication of data to the particular terminal.

9. The multi-antenna station of claim 1 , further comprising a memory unit that stores the set of antennas for the particular terminal and provides the set of antennas a subsequent data transmission to the particular terminal.

10. The multi-antenna station of claim 1 , wherein the controller further selects a second set of antennas from the plurality of antennas for reception of an uplink transmission from the particular terminal.

11. The multi-antenna station of claim 10 , wherein the controller selects the second set of antennas based at least in part on a transmission mode used by the particular terminal for the uplink transmission.

12. The multi-antenna station of claim 10 , wherein the controller selects the set of antennas used for data transmission to the particular terminal as the second set of antennas used for reception of the uplink transmission from the particular terminal.

13. The multi-antenna station of claim 10 , further comprising at least one receiver that accepts the uplink transmission from the particular terminal via the second set of antennas.

14. The multi-antenna station of claim 1 , further comprising at least one remote front-end coupled to the at least one remote antenna, wherein each remote front-end performs signal conditioning for radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted or received via an associated remote antenna.

15. The multi-antenna station of claim 1 , further comprising a radio frequency (RF) switch that couples the transmitter to the plurality of antennas based on a modulated RF signal.

16. The multi-antenna station of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of antennas comprise at least two remote antennas that are located away from the multi-antenna station, the remote antennas are distributed within a coverage area of the multi-antenna station.

17. The multi-antenna station of claim 1 , wherein at least two of the antennas among the plurality of antennas have different radiation patterns.

18. A method of transmitting data, comprising: sorting a plurality of antennas coupled to a multi-antenna access point based on power measurements corresponding to a specific terminal, wherein the plurality of antennas include at least one local antenna coupled to the multi-antenna access point and at least one remote antenna coupled to the multi-station access point, a location of each of the plurality of antennas is based at least in part on an intended coverage area of each of the antennas having a directional or omni-directional radiation pattern; computing a difference in power between a pair of adjacent antennas sorted from the plurality of antennas; selecting a sorted pair of adjacent antennas when the difference in power exceeds a predetermined threshold for the pair of adjacent antennas to form a set of antennas; and transmitting data to the specific terminal via the set of antennas.

19. The method of claim 18 , further comprising obtaining one or more signal quality measurements for each of the plurality of antennas.

20. The method of claim 19 , wherein selecting the set of antennas further comprises selecting a predetermined number of antennas with highest signal quality measurements among the plurality of antennas.

21. The method of claim 19 , wherein selecting the set of antennas further comprises selecting antennas with the signal quality measurements above a predetermined threshold.

22. The method of claim 18 , wherein selecting the set of antennas is based at least in part on location information for the set of antennas selected based on the difference in power, wherein the location information is stored in a database.

23. The method of claim 18 , further comprising: storing in memory associated with the multi-antenna access point the set of antennas for the specific terminal; and subsequently transmitting additional data to the specific terminal utilizing the stored set of antennas.

24. The method of claim 18 , further comprising: selecting a second set of one or more antennas from the plurality of antennas for reception of an uplink transmission from the specific terminal; and receiving the uplink transmission via the second set of one or more antennas.

25. An apparatus comprising: means for sorting a plurality of antennas via power measurements, wherein the plurality of antennas are sorted according to a power measurement associated with a given terminal on each antenna of the plurality of antennas, the plurality of antennas are arranged within a deployment area of the apparatus such that at least one of the plurality of antennas is remote to the apparatus, and the antennas are arranged based at least in part on a type of each antenna and an intended coverage area for each antenna; means for selecting a set of antennas from the plurality of antennas associated with the apparatus, wherein the set of antennas is selected based at least in part on a measure of a power gap between antennas sorted consecutively according to the power measurements; and means for transmitting data to the given terminal via the set of antennas.

26. The apparatus of claim 25 , further comprising means for obtaining power measurements for each of the plurality of antennas.

27. The apparatus of claim 26 , wherein the means for selecting the set of antennas comprises means for selecting a predetermined number of antennas with highest power measurements among the plurality of antennas.

28. The apparatus of claim 26 , wherein the means for selecting the set of antennas comprises means for selecting antennas with power gap measurements between antennas adjacently sorted according to power measurements above a predetermined threshold so as to prevent selection of antennas with minimal additional power contribution.

29. The apparatus of claim 25 , further comprising: means for storing the set of antennas for the given terminal; and means for subsequently transmitting data to the given terminal utilizing the stored set antennas.

30. The apparatus of claim 25 , further comprising: means for selecting a second set of one or more antennas from the plurality of antennas for reception of an uplink transmission from the given terminal; and means for receiving the uplink transmission via the second set of one or more antennas.

31. A controller employing a processor operatively coupled to memory configured to implement instructions for transmitting data, comprising: instructions for selecting a set of antennas from a plurality of antennas for data transmission from a multi-antenna station to a given terminal by measuring a power gap between antennas ordered from highest power measurement to lowest power measurement, and the selecting of the set of antennas based at least in part on the power gap that surpasses a predetermined amount of power, wherein the plurality of antennas comprise at least one remote antenna that is located away from the multi-antenna station; instructions for transmitting data to the given terminal via the set of antennas; and instructions for transmitting data between the multi-antenna and the given terminal via one or more spatial channels.

32. The controller of claim 31 , further comprising instructions for obtaining one or more signal quality measurements for each the plurality of antennas, wherein the signal quality measurements include at least one of signal-to-noise ratio, received signal strength, or correlation data.

33. The controller of claim 32 , wherein the instructions for selecting the set of antennas comprise instructions for selecting a predetermined number of antennas with highest signal quality measurements among the plurality of antennas.

34. The controller of claim 32 , wherein the instructions for selecting the set of antennas comprise instructions for selecting antennas with signal quality measurements above a predetermined threshold.

35. The controller of claim 31 , wherein the instructions for selecting the set of antennas are further based at least in part on location information for the set of antennas having a power gap that surpasses the predetermined amount of power.

36. The controller of claim 31 , further comprising instructions for selecting a second set of antennas from the plurality of antennas for reception of an uplink transmission from the given terminal.